Gallifrey Forest Farm

Lost Skills: Soapmaking

2022/10/26 Danielle 0

Soapmaking, as a hobby, tends to get either the enthusiastic interest of people who are into homesteading and do-it-yourself make-your-own hobbies, or half-amused references to the 1994 Fight Club scenes about stealing medical waste from liposuction operations and turning the fat into soap to then sell back to the wealthy customers of those same cosmetic surgery clinics. That is possible, by the way. The making of soap from human (or, more usually) other animal fat. Lard (beef fat) and tallow (sheep or lamb fat) are traditional ingredients for soapmaking, and make a nice, hard soap with a good lather. One […]

Pedro Ximénez Grapevines 2022-09-30

2022/10/10 Danielle 0

[2022-08-27] Today I learned how to callus grapevine cuttings, from a very helpful and friendly gentleman at Harris Organic Wines in the Swan Valley. The same helpful and friendly gentleman who very kindly gave me some cuttings from his Pedro Ximenez vines, and talked to me about his vinyard and wine-making process (including, for example, that they make their own organic brandy there, to use in the fortified wines they produce). Previously, I’ve simply dipped the end of a grapevine cutting into rooting hormone powder and stuck it in a pot, and I’ve had about an 80% strike rate doing […]

Lost Skills: Cooking

2022/08/24 Danielle 0

I know. It’s a weird thing to list as a “lost” skill, right? But hear me out. A lot of people don’t really cook anymore. They never learned, or they don’t have time, or they think it’s hard (it’s really not). The rise of convenience foods and cheap (relatively) fast food have combined with the increased and increasing need for families ot have two – or possibly more – full time income-earners to make ends meet. It’s not a good thing. It probably showcases a lot of what is wrong with our capitalist society and economy, and we don’t even […]

Planting and planning

2022/08/15 Danielle 0

It’s been a busy few months. I know that this time of year always feels very hopeful, and by the middle of summer the heatwaves of desperation have set in, trying to keep everything alive.. but I do think it is getting better each year. Easier, maybe. I mean, we have actual winter pasture this year. Not much, yet, but the clover is properly established, and we’ve put out a pasture mix this time around so we should have ryegrass and more clover by spring. We’ve also got almost all of the trees in that are in the plan. Four […]

Permaculture Zones

2022/07/31 Danielle 0

So, last time I mentioned “permaculture zone 4 / 5”, and I realised that for anyone who hasn’t studied permaculture, that’s probably quite confusing. Even with the link I included. First off, you have to remember that permaculture is a set of design principles, not really a set of techniques. It’s almost more philosophical than practical, except that the philosophical part is taught via practical exercises. But because the fundamentals are philosophical and design concepts, each parctitioner must adapt them to their own context. Which is a long way of saying, there is no one true permaculture way. There are, […]